The Quality of the Arab Higher Education and its Role in the Development of Human Capital

Abstract

The purpose of this paper to identify the quality of the Arab Higher Education, with focus on higher education in Jordan by studying the number of students and faculty members, as well as their academic grades in the Jordanian universities, both public and private during the period 2000 – 2011. The research also discusses the actual status of Arab scientific research. The most important prime results were that the number of the university students increased from four millions to six millions during the period 2000- 2011. The number of the Professors and their degrees and academic grades in the Jordanian universities, public and private, also increased also increased during the same period; the total number of the university professors was (5566) in the public universities with (2599) professors in the private ones. Their grand total of academic degrees was (8165), including (1222) Professors, (1583) Associate Professor and (3124) Assistant Professor. The total number of doctorate (PhDs degree) was (6333) and (1591) Master Degree holders. The total number of the students during the academic year 2010-2011 in the public and private universities was (38707) and (13445) respectively.

The percent of disbursement on education of the Arab states increased from 4.6% to 5.7% during the period 1980 -2000. At the same time there is reduction in disbursement on the scientific research, as a percent of the national income of the Arab countries. It was noted that the scientific research expenses in Japan, USA and European countries increased (2.9%, 2.6% and 2.3%) respectively in 1996, compared to the Arab which was (0.02%).

Finally, the time series analysis has been used, by which the results were too different from the general trend, forecast value, and simple correlation coefficient to the university professors, students and the public and private universities themselves.

Keywords: quality of higher education, human capital, general trend equation